I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified
-- St. Paul, I Corinthians 2:2

Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Keeping up on the news

In a conversation the other day, a parishioner in his 20s asked me, "How do you keep up on the news? What sites do you go to?" At first, I was a little surprised by the question; but then, after thinking about it, why should I assume everyone is a news-consumer in the way I am?

So I thought I'd do a post about the more significant sites I rely on for news. Be advised! This is not an endorsement of any of these sites! I provided some notes below, to explain my choices.

Instapundit -- another aggregator, except it also includes brief commentary, which is usually very funny. The host, Glenn Reynolds, is a libertarian law professor with eclectic tastes.

National Catholic Register -- a faithful Catholic publication, owned by EWTN. A good site, but not a large amount of news coverage.

National Catholic Reporter -- would be better termed National Heretical Reporter. Why do I read it? Two reasons. First, because they do cover a lot of stories. Second, because I want to see more than my own point of view.

National Review Online -- conservative publication, with commentary on news, politics and religion. Especially good for judicial news.

RealClearPolitics -- disregard the name; it has pages of content on literature, science news, public policy, education, religion, history, technology, and more. Whoever runs this does an excellent job aggregating lots of straight news and opinion pieces, both left and right.

10 comments:

Decent selection. I read Crisis sometimes and the home page for New Advent. I read the Dayton Daily News for local info as long as grammar, spelling, and continuity is unimportant. Wall Street Journal for national stuff and some foreign news. The Scotsman, Sydney Morning Herald for foreign news, too.

I try to keep up, more or less successfully, with the Holy See's sites, and some of the vaticanistas. Are there any sites in either of those categories you regularly read or would recommend? Better put, maybe, are there sites that report specifically on the Holy See that you'd recommend?

I may give Crux a try again, looking at it from your 'NCRep without the crazy' perspective.

I agree with Crisis. Laura Inghram's new site LifeZette has an eclectic selection of news and commentary mostly conservative. Breitbart's sites; Newsbusters shows the inequality of the press in its reporting of the news; Campus Notes is a good site to discover how bad the Catholic Colleges are teaching our children; Catholic Vote is good; Sandro Magister's Rome site is great to get the inside skinny on what's going on at the Vatican; Politico used to be all liberal all the time, but it has moderated its view somewhat and is starting to write more about conservative issues although with a liberal bent; The best Catholic sites is this one and Fr. Z's without a doubt. I also like The Northern Hermit and for our English brothers and sisters across the pond, Fr. Ray Blake's Blog. It is always good to keep both right and left site's in your reading lists. Staying on one site like "the Blaze" or "World Net Daily" will certainly keep your mind jaded to one side. I can't stand NCR or Crux. I get mad when I read them and so they are a near occasion of sin for me, right Father?

I check Sandro Magister once or twice a week: chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/

Note: there's an English version of it; not sure that link takes you to it.

Hoser:

I stopped visiting Breitbart because of spam attacks (or whatever the correct lingo is) that it generated on my computer. Also, while I think they often have some real news, I am a little skeptical of their news judgment. More than a few times, I've found the headline didn't match the real story they were reporting.

News judgement. That is a good description. I look for sites in various countries that will report what is going on so that I can be aware and hopefully informed about what is going on other places. One of the first things I look for is the point of view and try to discern the news judgement. English language news sources in countries where English is not the native language often are fairly even handed, depending on the publication. I still have to be careful. Unfortunately no American source that I am aware of, is not intentionally skewed, often heavily, in a political direction.

Really enjoy your blog. In our parish the musical director has many resources with suggestions of hymns that send a message about the Mass readings. She spends a lot of time each week choosing just the right ones. The parish hymnal could have made it easier if they had included hymns for the readings in the Mass.

Father, I thank you for putting this info out to us. There are a couple of sites that I knew about and always meant to read regularly, but never did. The National Review is one such. I often see cited articles, but didn't follow it regularly. I did read it today, and really enjoyed their "wrap" on the Republican candidates debate last night.You really are a well-rounded priest, and we here are very fortunate to "know" you.

About Me

I am the parish priest at Saint Remy Parish in Russia, Ohio, in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
What appear to be my opinions expressed herein are, in fact, my opinions, no one else's. Those in the comments belong to the commenters.